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The yellow made us mellow. Now Toronto needs the giant rubber duck back for good: Menon

No, no. Don’t tell me this can’t be done. We live in a city with a retractable dome and a free-standing tower that was once the tallest in the world. Anything is possible. And don’t talk to me about logistics or money. If we can blow $3.4 billion and counting on a ludicrous one-stop subway extension to Scarborough, surely we can pony up for an inflatable duck that will bring joy and comfort to way more lives.

Perhaps we can make the duck an everlasting attraction by adding a mallard tax for foreign homebuyers. Or maybe Norm Kelly can help subsidize the year-round costs by volunteering to work inside the duck or by donating a slice of the revenue he generates from shamelessly hawking hats and sweats on Twitter.

However we do it, it needs to be done.

The rubber duck must become a permanent installation.

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Did I expect to have strong feelings about what is essentially a bath toy the size of an aircraft carrier? I did not. But now that it has floated into other provincial waters, it feels like we’ve been robbed of something we never knew we needed: a novelty sight gag with the power to unite.

Young or old, rich or poor, liberal or conservative, whatever the colour of your skin, whatever the cause of your social media feuds, the world’s largest rubber duck was immune to all that divides us. It actually didn’t do anything this long weekend except soak up the gawks and gapes of awed humans who flocked to the monstrosity as if on a religious pilgrimage.

Apparently, in duck we trust. Show me one person who was underwhelmed by this anti-Godzilla and I will show you a liar. In these cynical times, with snark and negativity now rivaling carbon dioxide as an atmospheric threat, the duck turned even the coldest of hearts into pâté.

Children pointed and laughed. Grown-ups couldn’t help but smile and snap selfies, as if posing with a giant yellow celebrity. For a nice change, there was no bickering, no disagreement, no backlash. As the crowds arrived, shattering attendance records for the Redpath Waterfront Festival, the duck achieved the impossible: it brought us together.

Everyone adored the duck. The visual assault on perspective and expectation — being in close proximity to a rubber duck that is 61 feet tall, 79 feet wide, 89 feet long and 30,000 pounds is like staring up at a highrise and realizing it is made entirely of Lego bricks — was a literal reminder that we are much smaller than we often imagine and, as such, the delight of sheer spectacle remains possible even as the world seems to be turning into one big cluster-duck.

If anything, we should be quacking our ducky praises far and wide, telling everyone about how this magnificent fowl made us feel. This public art deserves to manifest in every troubled region across the planet.

We should put a few in the Korean Peninsula to help brighten the mood and defuse the friction before catastrophe dawns. You can’t tell me Kim Jong Un will still be inclined to trigger nuclear Armageddon when, during the next missile test, he squints into his binoculars and beholds a flock of grinning fake birds.

And since ducks are amphibious, we could place one strategically outside the White House, where Donald Trump might see it when he’s not watching TV or clacking out insane tweets. Who knows, an artificial duck might even serve as a therapy animal for a synthetic president before it’s too late for the rest of us.

Me, I’m thinking about commissioning a giant duck for my own living room or backyard. Then whenever my wife is ticked about something I did, I’ll take her hand and say, “Come with me, darling. Let us visit with the duck. Let us calm down.”

You know, aside from the minuscule risk of spontaneous deflation or accidental explosion, there is very little downside to having a giant rubber duck in our eternal midst. Or, really, a giant anything. This is a principle of tourism small towns already understand, whether it’s selling baked goods from inside a giant apple that beckons from the 401 or greeting travellers with a giant Canada goose statue or tempting visitors with a giant Muskoka chair that makes for great Lilliputian photo-ops.

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